U.S. Magistrate Judge William I. Garfinkel concluded that the details of the case and the potential punishment for Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, render him too great a flight risk, even if he were to wear an electronic tracking bracelet and deposit $50,000 with the court's clerk.

Khazaee "has very good reason to leave the country," Garfinkel said. "In fact, it would almost be irrational for him not to attempt to leave, under the circumstances. … This is a case that the flight risk is way too high."

In January, authorities arrested Khazaee at Newark International Airport in New Jersey as he was boarding a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, where he planned to connect to a flight to Tehran, Iran, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Connecticut. He was found with $60,000 in his carry-on — money prosecutors have seized and the defense says was to pay for medical care for Khazaee's mother in Iran.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that Khazaee could face up to 30 years in jail for more serious crimes that the government has yet to charge him with.

Defense attorney Hubert Santos, in arguing for Khazaee's release before trail, said holding him at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., makes it difficult for Santos to meet with him about the highly technical engineering manuals and documents found among items Khazaee was shipping to Iran. The solution he proposed was to have Khazaee stay in an apartment in Greater Hartford, with a tracking device, and post $50,000 bail.

Prosecutors have offered to move Khazaee from Rhode Island to detention facilities in Connecticut, including Hartford and Bridgeport, which would be closer to Santos' offices.

In addition to the decision on pre-trial release, the hearing Wednesday gave Santos the chance to raise an issue he sees surfacing when the trial begins next year. Are the documents that were found among Khazaee's belongings in December decades old manuals with little value in the present, as Santos says, or are they, as the government contends, extremely sensitive plans for some of the military's latest technologies?

"A lot of this material is 40 years old," Santos said.

Government prosecutors described Khazaee as an extreme flight risk, unlikely to be deterred by an electronic bracelet and bail. Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel said the government's fear would be that Khazaee cuts the bracelet and escapes to Canada. There, he could enter an Iranian embassy, get a new passport and leave for Iran.

In a memo opposing Khazaee's request for release until his trial is expected to start next year, prosecutors said that Khazaee had, years earlier, emailed documents about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to individuals at a university in Iran — in one case openly acknowledging the documents' inherent sensitivity.

The documents "are very controlled … and I am taking a big risk," Khazaee wrote in the 2008 emails, the government said.

Prosecutors said Wednesday Khazaee appeared as if he would not be returning from his trip to Tehran. Agents searched his Indianapolis apartment, finding nothing but a mattress and a lamp, Patel said. He spoke in emails about wrapping up his life in the United States and needing only to figure out how to send a vehicle to Iran.

The defense argued that if Khazaee was itching to leave for good, he would not have left $60,000 in U.S. bank accounts.

Santos said Khazaee was looking for employment at a university in Iran because he was laid off from Pratt & Whitney in August. If prospects were good for a job there, he might have stayed. Otherwise he would have returned. "He was not sure he wanted to stay in Iran," Santos said.

That, and visiting his sick mother, were reasons for his visit, Santos said. The documents made their way into his belongings because Khazaee would often work from home, he said.